the musings of a free-spirited young woman dedicated to giving her soul a voice

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Women Who Run with the Wolves -- Part II

In today's reading of Women Who Run with the Wolves, Estes talked about the importance of examining the deaths--both big and small--of our lives.

She writes:

"To make descansos means taking a look at your life and marking where the small deaths, las muertes chiquitas, and the big deaths, las muertes grandotas, have taken place. I like to make a time-line of a woman's life on a big long sheet of white butcher paper, and to mark with a cross the places along the graph, starting with her infancy all the way to the present where roads not taken, paths that were cut off, ambushes, betrayals and death. I put a little cross along the time-line at the places that should have been mourned, or still need to be mourned. And then I write in the background "forgotten" for those things that the woman senses but which have not yet surfaced. I also write "forgiven" over those things the woman has for the most part released" (pp. 365-66).

And this has struck me as a beautiful exercise and one I will undertake soon on retreat. I think part of living life with the force of a goddess is to name the wounds of the past and suture them. This has been much on my mind recently because the past few days (and days to come) mark an anniversary of sorts...of a powerful lesson I learned last year. It broke me apart but I built myself anew and am grateful for the tearing and shaking that now resides in memory only. It's important, methinks, to honor anniversaries of large soul moments like these because they're akin to pomegranates -- you're broken open to discover seeds which give flesh to your new life.

And, I've gone on to have a new life, one full of much joy and happiness; still it's important to acknowledge the work of the past...and there, in my walk towards forgiveness and compassion, I burned great fires of anger and rage over what had occurred. Rage can be a great teacher so long as you don't stay there for very long, which I didn't. As Estes writes, "Even raw and messy emotions can be understood as a form of light, crackling and bursting with energy. We can use the light of rage in a positive way, in order to see into places we cannot usually see" (p. 352).

Anger gave way to confusion and sadness, as I fought to understand what I was feeling and to give it all a voice. I never really got to speak my piece but perhaps I'll be granted an opportunity now that my fires have burned and I am calm. My dreams have been working it out for me over the past year, and I'm grateful for the subconscious of other parties who also show to do this work.

Last, it is my heart's desire that closure of this event and its teaching relationship will become possible -- to meet the Other, to acknowledge the gift that was exchanged, to give thanks for its transfer and to release the Other back into the world with gratitude--I know that it's possible and that it's working its way towards me.

One Thing: Be Brave

About Me

I feel very much rooted in the earth, but my friends and family describe my personality as "free spirited." It is good to be free spirited and wholly alive, methinks, swimming in the flow until fingers get pruney and one's soul feels saturated and content. Life is a mystery to be cherished and traveled. I like to eat good food. Soak up Nature's beauty. Laugh in the company of good people. Drum at pickup music sessions. Feel lamb's ear and pine and lavender and sage between my fingers. Count the stars in the sky and watch satellites whiz by in their orbits. I like listening to the old ones and absorbing their stories that always manage to sound fresh. I feel honored when the Muse sits and visits and the dreams that dance me into other realms at night. The synchronicities that lead my way each day, always making me feel like Alice. And the quiet that can be heard in the desert and on the shore and in the trees.

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Quotes To Live By In 2012

“Be wild; that is how to clear the river. The river does not flow if polluted; we manage that. The river does not dry up; we block it. If we want to allow it its freedom, we have to allow our ideational lives to be let loose, to stream, letting anything come, initially censoring nothing. That is creative life. It is made up of divine paradox. To create one must be willing to be stone stupid, to sit upon a throne on top of a jackass and spill rubies from one’s mouth. Then the river will flow, then we can stand in the stream of it raining down.” ~Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Women Who Run with the Wolves

I can tell you that it takes great strength to surrender. You have to know that you are not going to collapse. Instead, you are going to open to a power that you don't even know, and it is going to come to meet you. In the process of healing, this is one of the huge things that I have discovered. People recognized the energy coming to meet them. When they opened to another energy, a love, a divine love, came through to meet them. That is what is known as grace. We all sing about amazing grace. It is a gift.

I think that it comes through the work that we do. For some people, it can come out of the blue, but I know that in my own situation, the grace came through incredible vigilance.